TheSingleGuy Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 I was at an Astros game on the 4th of July last summer. I was standing against the fence making out with a girl when the game ended. I overheard one woman comment to her husband "Remember when we used to be like that?" The divorce rate has gone insane. Even my cousin, amazingly, is going through this. He is a devout Christian, and that side of the family is extremely religious, and to see his wife of 10 years run off and get pregnant by another man and then move in with him while still married to my cousin...it is just eye opening and telling of the times we live in. I just finished reading a book, "Mating In captivity". The author attempts to explain why so many marriages become sexless. Bottom line, is, we can only desire that which we don't already have, or that which isn't easily obtainable. When you live under the same roof, the desire drops. It struck me as odd, that throughout this entire, long winded book, the author never once questioned whether or not lots of sex in a marriage is normal, historically speaking. So I started thinking about it. Birth control has only been around for about 50 years or so. Our great grand parents didn't have condoms. They didn't have vasectomies. They didn't have the pill. They didn't have the morning after pill. None of these things existed 100 years ago. For our great grand parents, getting it on with the wife could carry very severe consequences...Another mouth to feed. It only stands to reason that marriages prior to birth control had to have been pretty sexless. Today's woman, I think, wants to feel that feeling of desire from her husband. I think it's referred to as the "Honeymoon Phase." She wants it to be the way it felt in the beginning. She has been brainwashed into thinking that if she's only having sex with her husband a few times a year, the marriage is dead. So she's leaving a baseball game and sees two grown adults, in her age group, making out and then she thinks SHE should be getting that kind of attention from her husband. The girl making out with that guy...that girl should be her. I believe marriages were naturally stale, sexually, until the advent of birth control and the sexual revolution beginning in the 60's. Today's woman, if she's not getting that "feeling" from her husband, is very inclined to leave or cheat or both. Some men are this way too, but this seems to be the number one complaint with women in committed, exclusive relationships..."He just doesn't make me feel desired." Have I connected the dots incorrectly, or am I on to something here?
bean1 Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 Well, it is a pretty new phenomenon to be able to put your baby in a crib in another room. Humans have co-slept as a group since existence until the last few 100+ years where people decided to put their children somewhere else (and that of course is only for those who could afford anything but a one room house). So, I'm sure sex wasn't as frequent as now in a marriage/family situation. Not to mention you tended to sleep in the same room with your extended family. On the other hand, numerous children was extremely useful - there was no welfare and you didn't hire people to farm if you had enough sons. So, the mouths to feed were profitable. And of course, a 1/4 miscarriage rate for healthy women NOW is a lot better than a 1/4 miscarriage rate + good 20 or so % infant mortality rate back then. And then there's disease. I guess all that rambling means there's a heck of a lot more than birth control at work here.
Lucky_One Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 My grandfather was the youngest of 11; his mother died giving birth to him. Not exactly what I would have called a sexless marriage. You said, "Today's woman, I think, wants to feel that feeling of desire from her husband. I think it's referred to as the "Honeymoon Phase." She wants it to be the way it felt in the beginning. She has been brainwashed into thinking that if she's only having sex with her husband a few times a year, the marriage is dead." How funny. I would have generalized that men believe that more than women. Matter of fact, I would say that the number one reason that men would give as cheating is "She don't give up the pudding enough."
Disillusioned Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 A MALE birth control pill, OTOH, would change social norms even more.
Lucky_One Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 http://www.iub.edu/~kinsey/resources/ak-data.html Check that link out to the Kinsey Report. Back in the 1940's-50's, they reported that married couples had sex about 2.2 times a week on average. Today, they report that about 34% of married couples have sex 2-3 times a week, and 45% have sex a few times a month. I would conclude that marital sex hasn't changed that much.
Buck Turgidson Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 Birth control is NOT only 50 years old. The condom has been used since prehistory. Continued nursing has been used as birth control in every civilization, forever. Divorce rates are higher now than in your grandmother's time, but so are life expectancies. The average life of a marriage is no shorter now than it was 100 years ago; only now, marriages tend to end in divorce instead of death. Prior to your grandmother's post-victorian (i.e. "modern") mores, sex in marriage would not have resulted in the "extreme consequence" of another mouth to feed, but rather the desired consequence of another pair of hands to be put to work. The idea that teenagers are children is very new; prior to 1900, children as young as 6 or 7 would have been expected to work for the family in whatever capacity they could. So you see, the problem you're talking about never really existed, and even if it had, would only have existed for the one generation after people aged about 12 were considered children and before hormonal birth control.
skelterhelter Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 (edited) You bring up interesting points, but there are a few things to consider. I think families actually had MORE children during our great-grandparents' era (and even earlier). More children equaled more labor on the farms (more income for the family), and with the mortality rate not as high as it is during our time, couples tried for more children in order to carry on the family name. It's more common to hear of 11 children families during our great grandparents' time than it is today (well, with the exception of the Duggars and Octomom ). I think the issue is more of a societal/economic shift. In many cases, both husband and wife need to work in order to support the family, leading to a greater divide between them as couple. And with the advent of technology, people are more accustomed to a "have it immediately" mentality -- when something no longer works...well, why not get a new one? Not to say this didn't exist back then, but it was certainly more hush hush. People want to rush into marriage or settle for the first person who seems right, but when things get tough, they bail. I think there was more of a "let's work through this and keep up appearances for society/family" in our grandparents' era. Not to say that is the right thing to do. RE birth control: I think birth control creates more options and more freedom. I don't think it's as harmful to a marriage as you think. Edited January 11, 2012 by skelterhelter
Author TheSingleGuy Posted January 11, 2012 Author Posted January 11, 2012 Did it ever occur to anyone that, even though grandma & grandpa had 12 kids, that could have been the result of just 12 sexual encounters???? Seriously, my ex-wife and I had sex maybe one time after the first baby was born. My ex-wife had an agenda. She wanted another baby 3 years later. She forced the issue. We had sex like 3 times, maybe, and she was pregnant. (FYI: I had him tested after the divorce, and he is mine.) I think they say sperm will live inside the woman for up to 21 days. If she's a fertile woman, she's a fertile woman. And for those arguing about birth control being commonplace before the 60's, I simply do not agree. Also, that Kinsey report says that 46% of the men they surveyed had engaged in homosexual sex. I simply don't believe that report at all.
grkBoy Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 I think a big part of the problem is our lives have become more nonstop busy. In the past, dad worked 8 hours a day and mom tended house. Now both parents work and scramble around in a world where the 8-hour workday doesn't exist anymore...where you're expected to give up family and personal life for the career. Man and woman come home exhausted, tired, she's on her period, someone's not in the mood, etc. In the past, the woman was expected to "perform" at the man's desire...now she can say she's not in the mood and he must back off. I'm not claiming I want the past, but more displaying how life has changed for everyone.
O'Malley Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 Family planning has always been utilized, to various degrees of success (obviously the rates of success are not to be compared with hormonal birth control or surgical sterilization). The notion that women historically didn't work is reliant on economic factors -- poorer women have always worked in some capacity, even when they had children. My maternal grandmother was obligated to work starting at seven years old. As others have said, plenty of of our recent ancestors had multiple marriages -- many of these were due to spousal mortality, but the occurrence of divorce, simple separation and bigamy wasn't as atypical as is commonly perceived. Societal norms and expectations may have changed -- I'm fairly cynical about certain aspects of how technology is influencing society but neither do I have rosy generalities about the 'good' old days -- but the underlying sexual and emotional motives really have not.
Buck Turgidson Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 And for those arguing about birth control being commonplace before the 60's, I simply do not agree. Also, that Kinsey report says that 46% of the men they surveyed had engaged in homosexual sex. I simply don't believe that report at all. You don't believe the Kinsey Report? Then there is little point in arguing with you. You're allowed your own opinions, but not your own facts.
Lucky_One Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 http://www.iub.edu/~kinsey/resources/FAQ.html#frequency Here are more recent Kinsey stats. They really are fascinating. For example - 85% of men reported that their partner had an orgasm during their last sexual encounter; only 64% of women reported having an orgasm during their last sexual encounter. That is a B-I-G gap!!!
Quiet Storm Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 I have been with my husband over 20 years and we have sex 3-4 times a week. So the idea that married people don't have sex is not true for us. You just have to spice it up and try new and different things to keep married sex hot. I suspect that many couples back then used the withdrawal method, which only has a 4% failure rate if used effectively. If not used effectively, the failure rate goes up to around 20%. Condoms have 2% failure rate if used effectively, 12% if not. So withdrawal can be an effective method. In addition, a woman is only fertile when she is ovulating, for about three days per month. You could avoid having sex during ovulation, and prevent pregnancy in this manner, as well. I was very fertile, and conceived each child quickly. In high school, we used withdrawal and avoided ovulation time, which worked for us.
Quiet Storm Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 Hormonal birth can alter a woman's attraction to a man. It is a hormonal medication, and some women say that it decreases sex drive and changes the type of men they are attracted to. It can also affect the chemistry between the couple. A woman I worked with years ago met and married her husband while on the pill. Once she stopped taking it to conceive, her attraction for her husband waned (a nice guy) and she became attracted to bad boy types. An article related to this: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=birth-control-pills-affect-womens-taste
dasein Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 I simply don't trust research based on surveys regardless of the topic... maybe who is watching what TV show, but anything requiring an honest statement from the mass populace where human ego is involved? No thanks. To the topic, rhythm method and withdrawal became the red headed stepchildren of birth control after cheap mass produced condoms and the pill, but those methods aren't as ineffective as we are led to believe, especially in monogamous LTRs where the partners get used to each other over time.
Casablanca Posted January 11, 2012 Posted January 11, 2012 No, it has nothing to do with it IMO The divorces I know of, all but my Aunt got married too early and were immature. Physically, we develop quicker, possibly b/c of processed food, but our brain isn't developing any fast, and possibly slower. We now lean on technology for a lot of communication and a lot of younger people (Im not that old, 24, but people my ageish and younger), do not know how to communicate effectively with someone else. So when a problem in a relationship comes up, more people don't know how to handle it. We are now an instant gratification nation, so if a relationship or marriage arent working, more people are willing to just end it without trying to reckon it.
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